Crunchyroll & Funimation "Only" Pay $35 Per Hour Minimum To Anime Voice Actors

Funimation’s catalog will now move over to Crunchyroll’s with all their dubbed content being available on CR.

This will also finalize and make Crunchyroll a true MONOPOLY when it comes to anime streaming content and IP (intellectual property).

Around the same time this happened, it was revealed via Twitter that Crunchyroll and Funimation were exploiting anime voice actors before they merged.

Funimation’s long history of exploitation

Since the news broke that Crunchyroll And Funimation have become ONE, with Funimation phasing out to move over to CR, many anime accounts have been having at it with how they treat industry professionals.

One of those conversations being Funimation only paid anime dub voice actors $35 per hour, which is severely underpriced compared to the umbrella of voice acting.

Many anime dubbed voice actors, some of who don’t have the best reputations, were forced into accepting this type of pay due to Funimation’s “tiered” pricing.

It’s more accurate to say this is the accepted wage across the board, and no one unionized or fought back, and instead took what they were given in the name and love for anime.

They probably had no choice.

More of this is explained in the thread on Twitter.

$35 dollars is low for voice acting

Sara Secora on Twitter says $35 to $75 dollars per hour in the voice acting industry is actually low, in spite of others in the industry claiming it’s “good” for anime dubbed voice actors.

Her reasoning comes down to a coupe of things:

Voice acting is essentially freelancing.
Crunchyroll and Funimation (and Sony) exploit the fact that anime voice actors will lower their worth for less pay.
- In other words – they know they’ll take whatever pay they’re given, even if they have the means to pay a lot more.
Anime voice acting is an expensive industry with many expenses involved.
Anime voice actors don’t get royalties and aren’t paid AFTER the fact, despite an anime’s success.
Lack of healthcare benefits.
Anime dubbing is the lowest paid in the voice acting/voice over industry.
Risk of damaging vocal cords (screaming into mic for DBZ characters, etc).

One person in the comments admitted to making $2.5K in an entire year for anime dubbing, and that anime dubbing alone isn’t sustainable enough without having a job to support it.

This is of course the case for those who haven’t broke into the industry or become major big names (Chris Sabat for example).

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In the end, Crunchyroll and Funimation merging may or may not be a good thing going forward. But it’s clear there’s some skeletons in the closet that were hidden until now.

They have the means to pay more going forward, especially now of all times, but I don’t see that changing. And that’s why people are suggesting unions to make positive change.